Senate Judiciary leaders disagreed with an MPAA characterization ...

said the subcommittee didn’t “decline to act,” but instead determined the FCC had its review of broadcast flag well in hand. Writing on behalf of MPAA, attorney Bruce Boyden said the FCC shouldn’t delay or deny approvals of broadcast flag technologies based on “claimed anticompetitive effects of non-assert provisions.” The letter was written for 3 open proceedings the FCC has on broadcast flag. “We believe that when licenses grant any ‘necessary’ or ‘essential’ rights to licensees to practice the technology’s specification, it is reasonable and hardly anticompetitive to seek to reduce transaction costs, clear blocking positions, and avoid costly infringement litigation by having adopters agree not to assert any ‘necessary’ claims they hold within the scope of the specification against any other participants in the system,” the letter said. The letter then said the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee examined the issues and “declined to act.” But DeWine and Kohl said that shouldn’t be interpreted as a formal position by the subcommittee. “Rather the Subcommittee, while considering the positions of all sides, explored this issue with the staff of the Federal Communications Commission and determined that the FCC staff had a solid grasp of the competitive implications raised by the proposed licenses,” the DeWine and Kohl letter said.